Many years back, when she was a friend of mine, a married woman asked me if I’d ever experienced an orgasm.

We were in our early thirties at the time of this conversation; she was married to the same man who got her pregnant her senior year of high school.

She explained to me that she had never experienced one despite the fact that she had sex with her husband daily; a fact declared as she proceeded to tell me that each morning upon waking he would roll over and “do the deed”, then promptly get out of bed to shower. She would get up, gather together his clean clothing for the day and hand the bundle to him as he got out of the shower.

Up until the sixth year of living in the same neighborhood, she led me to believe her husband was the love of her life.

Thus, in the last year I lived in that neighborhood, I was disturbed to witness this same woman cheat on her husband as she launched into a friendship turned to affair with another man; someone who lived just down the street from me.

This man had been single a few years, his wife having left him soon after we moved to the neighborhood, for reason unknown to me. More recently he had been in a relationship with a single woman who also lived in the area. That relationship ended when this other woman died from a heart issue. It was then, this friend of mine, who until this point had been a “third wheel” in this trio friendship, seized the moment to further infiltrate herself into his life.

These two adults were not in the least discreet about their association after the death of the woman who created the common link between them, thus it was anyone paying attention could see their relationship was now more than just friends.

This woman’s husband was quite upset with the way his wife was carrying on but he seemed at a loss how to stop it. What he didn’t seem to recognize is he’d been effectively destroying his marriage relationship for a long time.

Yes, he provided financially, and yes, he certainly got his quota of sex; but there was so much more needed, thus so much more missing.

I was reminded of this incident this morning upon thinking on the matter of sex in relationships, and more specifically in how it correlates with a woman’s needs.

There’s no shortage of written material espousing the responsibility/duty of a woman to meet her husband’s sexual needs. Some self-proclaimed professionals pound mercilessly on women about their “duty” to have sex with their man whenever he “needs” or wants it.

Seldom, if ever, do I see mention of a woman’s needs, when it comes to this topic. And by “needs” I do not reference sexual.

In the story of that friend of mine; clearly she didn’t deny her husband sex, as she did her obligatory “duty” on a daily basis. His so-called “need”, which I believe he sought selfishly, was met.

However, her “needs” were clearly not being met, by him, as evidenced by her blatantly open affair with another man.

This “other” man (at least initially) was meeting her emotional needs, the needs her husband was failing to meet. Her desire to be with this other man was so strong she defied her religious beliefs, endured social criticism, and gave up husband and children, in order to be with him.

I can state with confidence it had nothing to do with sex, for her, but instead had everything to do with emotional needs.

What men DO need is to understand that women, by nature, have a strong desire for relationship and to love and be loved. Thus it is, a normal woman (I state it thus as there could be exceptions) will, by her nature, seek to give of herself to meet the needs of the man she loves when her she feels loved and cherished and fulfilled—which comes about when her emotional needs are met.

Imagine a young man setting out to buy the car of his heart’s desire. He’s endured driving his parent’s car, then his first jalopy, but now he’s in a position to buy the car of his dreams. So off he goes car “hunting” until he finds just the one; a beauty of a dream machine; a car he vows to treasure forever.

He proudly drives it around for all to admire. He starts out washing it regularly, tending to all its mechanical maintenance needs, and in return it provides him a sweet ride.

But after a while it loses some of its appeal to him, because, quite frankly, it’s become familiar.

It’s always there, dutifully parked in the drive, and starts up when he turns the key.

In the meantime, life demands start to weigh in on him. Maybe it is college, maybe it’s his job; whatever they are it is life demands. Between these and his recreational pursuits he doesn’t feel he has time and energy to put into his car like he did when it was new.

So he lets the oil change slide; he fails to do a timely tune up. His computer gaming and sleep needs don’t allow energy for the car washing.

But, still each day he depends on those trusty wheels to drive to his every desired location.

After a time of this, the day comes when he hops into his car, turns the key in the ignition and proceeds to drive down the road only to find his car is misfiring, spewing some smoke out the tail pipe, and in a word, driving like crap.

He gets out of the car and kicks it a few times in his frustration—damned car, what’s wrong with it! He has somewhere to go; he’s angry because this car is NOT properly meeting his need.

A woman is not so unlike a car. In order to run properly and not run “dry” she too needs proper maintenance.

From the book “His Needs Her Needs” by Willard F. Harley, Jr., I learned the following list of 5 needs, to which I’ve included my interpretation of each:

“A woman needs affection”: To which I say, affection is not groping; affection is loving touch. She needs and longs for non-sexual hugs and kisses that say “I love you”–with no (sexual) strings attached. FYI: Sufficient amounts of that affection will lead to a loving desire that can be consummated in sexual activity when the timing is right.

“A woman needs conversation”: She needs a man who cares about what she thinks and feels. She doesn’t need a man who pretends to “listen” while she talks hoping it will culminate in sex. She needs someone who is strive to understand and to care about what she has to say. As a side note: it’s reported many extramarital affairs come about upon a woman meeting a man who shows an interest in her thoughts and feelings and engages with her in meaningful conversation. So, for men, developing this skill is really important to the health and wellbeing of their significant relationship.

“A woman needs Honesty and Openness”: The lack of these can be highly detrimental to a relationship. Feeling that you cannot fully trust your man to be completely honest and open can bring about a serious problem. It opens the doors for fear, distrust and suspicion. Dishonesty in a relationship makes so a partner never knows what to trust resulting in anything that appears suspicious can potentially inflame into full blown doubt and distrust.

“A woman needs financial support”: I realize this could offend someone, but regardless, it suggests to be a fundamental truth. There may be exceptions, but my experience suggests a woman needs to feel her man is capable of taking care of her—even when she is capable of earning her own income.

“A woman needs family commitment”: For me, time, energy, interest, love and loyalty of my husband to our family are very important, and cause me to feel closer to him.

While I in no way condone the aforementioned friend’s affair, I believe I recognize how it came about. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard of men who condemn the woman who cheated on them not seeing or understanding they played such a significant role in the breakdown of the relationship.

Here I am, again sitting in a dark room laptop on my lap; at hours I should be sleeping. I was sleeping until, for reasons unknown, I awoke at 1:30 a.m. Initially I thought I’d go right back to sleep but as soon as I realized the song “Blind” by Lifehouse was playing across my mind clamoring for attention, I knew it was time to get up and take something to help quiet my mind (think herbal sleep supplement) so I could go back to sleep. That was over two hours ago. After lying in bed nearly that long I realized something wasn’t working for me.

The irony of this situation is that I actually went to sleep early in the evening, with the hope and desire to wake up feeling refreshed with energy, in the morning. By “morning” I had in mind 6 to 7 a.m., not pre-dawn middle of the night a.m.

At 3:10 a.m. I made my way to this dark front room. Rather than lie in bed with a million thoughts spinning in my head I determined I would blog, as somehow the process of writing extracts the mental thoughts, even if what I write has nothing to do with those original thoughts.

But before tackling that task I decided to youtube the aforementioned song. After listening to “Blind” I listened to another Lifehouse song titled “Broken”. I’ve really liked each of these songs, both the music and the lyrics; something about the lyrics resonates with something deep within me. I had the thought to post them on my Facebook wall but then hesitated as I fear people might think I was announcing something about my personal life since each speaks of lost love.

Thus we come to the purpose motivating me to write on this topic. For as long as I can remember I’ve loved and related so songs with lyrics deep and soulful, particularly those that speak of feelings related to lost love. Even though I am currently married to a man I love who loves me in return, I still appreciate this type of music. When my husband and I first got together I also listened to songs with sappy lovesick lyrics and enjoyed them, and I still enjoy listening to songs such as “Shameless” by Garth Brookes. However, just because something touches me deep inside when I listen to songs such as “Blind” or “Broken” does not mean my love relationship is in the crapper.

I think it’s more a matter of the reality that life, even in the best of times, still leaves us with a longing. I think it’s as Greg Laurie states it: deep down we recognize this world is not really our home; we long for something more. And no matter how much we love or are loved, by a fellow human being, that love alone will never complete us. We mortals simply cannot love perfectly. Yet I think I’m safe to say we each long to be loved completely and perfectly.

I think it’s this desire within us, to be perfectly loved, that can create frustration and subsequent dissatisfaction in our love relationships, if we don’t recognize it for what it is. I would suggest this to be a factor contributing to extra marital affairs—otherwise known as cheating, and marital break-ups—those who go from partner to partner looking for “the one”.

I used to believe in Disney; I believed the message of the films when they assured me once I found my prince I would live happily ever after. I now believe there is no such thing as “the one”. “Happily ever after” is nothing more than a fairy tale. And I no longer believe in “soul-mates”.

Years ago I was offended to learn husband didn’t believe in “soul-mates”. At the time our relationship was new and I was caught up in the euphoria that is so normal with a new love relationship and thus I just knew he was my “soul-mate”. Now, over a decade later, I realize that while I do love him and I do enjoy his company, he does not complete me. And I no longer expect him to complete me. However, I most certainly am not looking to any other man either because I realize an important reality: No man on earth has the capacity to complete me.

What I do know is I need to look to God to complete me. I now understand that this is the source from which I can anticipate perfect love. So long as I sojourn here on earth I expect to continue feeling that longing for home and that longing for complete and perfect love. In the meantime, now that I have gained this understanding, I can be okay with the imperfectness of human relationships in this life, while at the same time trying to keep my eye focused on the eternal goal: anticipating the joy, the peace, and the feeling of completeness that await me in the next.

I awoke from a dream in which I had been crying. Thankfully, crying in my sleep is not something that happens often, but when it does it always has something to do with another person. And always that other person is someone with whom I have, at one point of time had what was, at least for me, a very meaningful connection; a connection that has been broken, for one reason or another be it death or some other life altering changes.

Apparently, I am concluding, it is when I am asleep that I am calm enough or connected enough to my feelings or emotions that this is the time when I grieve what I perceive as losses, or yearn to reestablish that connection.

Yet at the same time in my life I continue to have what I believe to be fairly meaningful connections with those who continue to be a part of my life. Or do I?

Just this last week I began reading the book, Self Matters, by Dr. Phil McGraw. It’s not a newly written book but it contains some very informative material nonetheless. (I’ll bog on it one day soon as it really is a good book). He illustrates the process of seeing the world and ourselves through filters. Growing up I assumed, without really thinking about it that we all saw life in the same way. I saw the world as a very scary place; an environment that was too big and too powerful for me to be able to survive in on my own. My early life experiences taught me to be very afraid of those who were granted positions of authority (to this day, against my will, I still get weak in the knees when a cop car gets too close to mine). I could go on and on in detail but suffice it to say I grew up with a very distorted perception of the world; one in which I felt weak and afraid so that instead of working towards reaching my potential as a strong and vibrant woman; I instead sought anxiously for a man to take care of me.

Thus, despite my 6th grade teachers’ encouragement to apply myself to school because she saw in me potential to be able to pursue a college degree, I followed the prescribed path laid out for me that my purpose was to marry and bare children. By the time I finished high school plans were already laid out for me to move to another state, one in which I could meet many young men also raised in the religious faith of my youth so that I would have ample options to marry that “special someone”.

Apparently, as I’ve since come to recognize and Dr. Phil goes into detail on, I had a life script of which I was completely unaware of on a conscious level; a script that compelled me to reject options for a relationship with anyone who had the potential to love me, care for me and otherwise treat me well—not to mention properly provide, financially, for me, and my future offspring. Therefore, having pushed away the “nice guys” and the educated and established men that were interested in me, I opted instead to marry a young man who, I recognized before marriage, had a bad temper, was prone to violence, was uneducated and was very lacking in self-esteem, so, like me, had failed to take measures to reach his potential.

As life would be, the subsequent storms, trials and pain that came from this critical, life altering, unwise choice of mine provided fertile ground for a LOT of personal growth. Rather than accept and wallow in the miserable state in which I found myself, at age twenty-four I began a quest for personal growth and emotional healing. I started reading a variety of books pertaining to interpersonal relationships as well as works of the day that addressed personal growth. Periodically I sought out the guidance of personal counselors.

Initially I thought if I could fix myself then the relationship I was in would be happy. I believed myself to be “broken”; a flaw my (now “ex”) spouse was more than happy to use as a weapon against me. It would seem he preferred to see the problems in our marriage solely mine; his character, it would appear, did not allow for beliefs otherwise. After 17 years of that marriage, I’m happy to say I had grown enough as a person to recognize my personal worth, to gain confidence that I am capable of caring for myself, and that I am worthy of being in a relationship in which I am loved and appreciated; which is why I left that union and moved on.

I am now married to a man I originally met my freshman year of high school. He’s good to me and makes it a point to let me know he loves me. He’s been good to the two children of my first marriage and he takes very good care of the child of our union. For the most part I’ve no reason for complaint—at least that I am aware of. So the question begs: why do I feel a sense of something lacking.

This dream, from which I awoke crying, affirms to me there is something yet. Hence my quest to probe deeper and unearth what it is for which I seem to yearn. I have a suspicion it will at least in part have to do with the need to work towards fulfilling my potential as an individual. Maybe it’s time to pursue that college education I still have the potential for.

But, to be honest, I still feel a need for close friendships. A marriage relationship is a good thing, and mine is of value and worth to me. The friendship I share with my adult daughter is also a very positive aspect of my life, which I treasure. But I really think we humans actually need “friends” as well; the kind we can connect with on a deep and soulful level. I’m not talking the superficial, in word only “friends” of the popular social mediums such as Facebook. Let’s face it; there simply is not deep and meaningful connection to be found there. If you are like me, for the most part those are about a fulfilling as satisfying your thirst with sea-water.

And now that I’m reaching the end of this VERY long blog, I’ve managed to sort out the underlying meaning of my dream and why I cried. However, as this blog has become VERY long, I’ll save that for the topic of my next blog. I hope you’ll be with me as I follow this journey.